Lead singer Bono, in a BBC interview promoting his band’s newest CD, called Martin a “wanker. ” When the interviewer suggested that Bono might want to apologize, he changed his tune, calling Martin a “cretin.”

First, Bono’s right. Coldplay is rock music’s lazy, good-for-nothing brother-in-law. They don’t have an original thought in their head and haven’t had an original sound in the band’s history.

They began ripping off Oasis, then Radiohead, and for a year have been mimicking Arcade Fire. Recently, however, there is some indication that they’ve been morphing into a U2 clone.

Even though those clothes they wear everywhere aren’t original. Coldplay stole the idea from either from The Beatles’ Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band LP or from the Marx Brothers’ Duck Soup.

You be the judge:

Pretty obvious, eh?

Bono says he was kidding. And to his credit, he did call Coldplay a good band and said Martin was a genius in the very same interview.

Despite that, it’s not good for Coldplay. Despite commercial success, the band is a punchline.